Fallen Wish
by Jellyslugs
Summary: This is a Harvest Moon story, with all original characters. The main pairing is Damien & Bella. The whole thing is based off a Gaia Online collectible called 'Fallen Wish'. Rated T for language & some suggesting.
1. Bella and the Bear

Chapter 1: Bella and the Bear

**Omni **

Mr. and Mrs. Parker, and the rest of the Candle-Light Valley and Starlit Town saw a glowing object flying in from the night sky and began to panic. Luckily, the falling object landed somewhere in the forest on the hill that separated Starlit Town and Candle-Light Valley. The two towns weren't rivals; they worked together in a lot of situations. They were just separated by a hill. Mr. and Mrs. Parker, who lived on the edge of Starlit Town, were the only ones who ran to the fallen object. Once they got to the oversized ditched created by the object, they saw what was inside. The married couple were blinded by a shining light. Mrs. Parker opened her eyes before her husband, and saw what the object was.

"Go home and get a towel!" She told him.

He did as he was told, running as fast as he could.

The twenty-four year old wife jumped into the ditch and slid down the curves to the naked, shining girl. The girl had long, blonde hair that went down to the back of her knees and an hourglass-figure body. She appeared to be seventeen.

"Ma'am?" Mrs. Parker shook the girl's shoulder.

The girl's eyes opened. "Where am I?" She managed. Mrs. Parker held her up by her back and more glowing came from the sky. The same event was happening again, but four more were falling at the same time. They hit the ground in the shape of a pentagon, or when you looked at it a certain way, a star.

The twenty-six year old husband came back with a towel in his hand and a shocked look on his face when he saw the girl.

"Landon," Mrs. Parker said to her husband, "get four more towels."

**Damien**

As I saw four more shooting stars fall from the night sky, I wanted to run to go see the fallen star, but my brother, Joel, saw me trying to leave and said "go back to sleep; it's two in the morning." In the news paper the next day on the front page, I saw Mrs. Parker saving girls; she said they were the objects falling from the sky. She must have woken up to the shining, just like the rest of the Town.

Joel said I could leave to ask Mr. and Mrs. Parker some questions about it once I watered the crops. I had a quarter acre of cucumbers, but we had just bought a hose. My sister, Olivia, took care of the strawberries. It took me about two hours from six in the morning, then rode over on Aurora, my horse, to Mr. and Mrs. Parker's house. Joel said he and my sister, would feed the animals for me, but I would have to milk the cows and get the eggs from the chickens when I got back.

Once I got to the Parker's house, I tied Aurora to a tree next to the large-ish house and knocked on the door. Mr. Parker answered the door, with a smile on his face.

"Damien, how have you been?" He asked, gesturing me inside. "Come on in."

I nodded, smiling, and walked inside, taking my shoes off. I put them by the entry.

"What do you need?" Landon asked.

"Well…" I began a little nervous on the subject. "I was wondering about you two housing the five girls…"

"Oh!" He knew what I was talking about, of course. "Emma!" He called his wife.

Emma Parker walked into the entryway and had a shocked, yet happy look on her face. Emma was one of my childhood friends, even though she was six years older than me. Our parents knew each other. I never liked her more than a friend though.

"Damien!" She exclaimed and came towards me with a hug. "What are you doing here?" She asked, not in the bad way, squeezing me. Landon looked a little annoyed.

She let me go so I could answer. "I was wondering about the five girls you're housing."

"Ohh." She said in an understandable tone and nodded. "Did you see that small meteor shower last night?"

"That was seriously them?" I answered with another question.

"Yeah," she sighed, "and–"

A blonde girl who appeared seventeen walked out of a room upstairs and interrupted her. "Emma, can I borrow your–" She stopped when she saw me in the room. Her curly, blonde hair was so long, it went down to the back of her knees. "Sorry," she apologized, "I didn't realize you had company." She was wearing clothes that were probably Emma's because they were a little too big on her slim body.

"Bella," she introduced us as the girl seemed to dance down the stairs towards me, "this is Damien. Damien, this is the first girl I found." Her feet didn't even make a sound as she tip-toed across the floor.

We shook hands. "I'm Bellarina, but you can call me Bella."

_Bellarina. That's an odd name. _

Up close, I could see that one of her eyes was a dark blue, and her left eye was a dark purple. And even closer, I could see that her pupils were kind of in the shape of a heart. She had what looked a tattoo on her forehead that was in the shape of a star. She was about four inches shorter than me. She looked like a princess. The most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

But if I focused enough, I could see something sparkling on her back.

"I'm going to go take a shower," she told Emma. "Can I borrow your brush?"

"Yeah, it's in the top drawer."

Emma began walking upstairs and looked back at me. "It was nice meeting you."

"Nice meeting you too…" I mumbled.

"Is Layla still sleeping?" Emma asked Bella before she went into another room. Bella nodded and Emma sighed. "She was asleep when we found her." Emma explained. "We're going shopping for clothes for them later, so I hope she'll wake up."

I nodded and thought where they were going to stay for the rest of their lives. If they stayed here long enough.

"What are you going to do?" I asked.

"What do you mean?" Emma asked. Landon was being pretty silent this entire time.

"I mean, you can't house them forever. Where will they stay?"

They looked at each other.

"We're not sure," Landon finally said something.

I thought about it. "What if they lived on the farm with me and Joel?"

They both looked at me funny, their eyebrows raised.

"I'm sure Joel wouldn't mind helping out… them." I wasn't quite sure what to call them. "They would just have to work on the farm a bit to help pay their expenses of living there."

"Are you sure? I mean, that's a lot to take on."

"Not really. Where else are they going to stay?" I reminded them.

"That's true." Emma looked at her husband.

"Why don't you go over it with your brother and sister first, and then come back here?" Landon took a step next to his wife.

"Sure." I said, heading towards the door. "Thanks." I smiled back and left; they waved at me.

I rode back through the small town on Aurora. For a small town, we had a fairly large town square. We used it for small get-togethers, since it was either hot or regular temperature here. It hasn't rained here in decades. It was currently spring. If the event was too big, like a dance, then we would go to the town square in Candle-Light Valley.

I jumped off Aurora to find my sister to spray me with a hose and glaring with me. Me and my sister we're really close. We weren't the kind of brother and sister that hated each other, but we did pick on and mess with each other a lot. And we would help out each other no matter what.

Everyone tells us that me and my brother look almost like twins, but me and my sisters don't look much alike. The only thing that tells people we're related is our eyes. Our family runs with blue-gray eyes, but the hair colour can vary between brunette and blonde. Me and my brother we're brunettes while my sister was a blonde. She was cute though.

Olivia was three years younger than me, so I was protective over her. She also likes to be called Ollie, but I call her Olivia just to pick on her. Joel called her Olivia just because they're brother and sister. They aren't as close as we were though.

"What was that for?!" I said, shaking the water from my hands.

"Joel made me do your chores and went to the Blue Bar. You've been slacking off a lot lately."

It was true; I had been cutting work so I could go do something else, but usually it was for a good reason. A lot of the times, though, Joel would slack off doing _my_ work and make Olivia do it.

"That's the _last_ time I do your work!" She exclaimed, spraying me with the hose again.

I took it from her and sprayed her back.

Our dog, Kiwi, came running into the sprayer. She _loved_ playing in the water. But she had to pee every ten minutes if she drank it. Technically, Kiwi was _Olivia_'s dog, but we all do our part in taking care of her. She's a boxer, so she's a big bundle of muscle. She was a birthday present to Olivia a year ago, and we got her when she was only eight weeks. And now she's full grown. My brother had a cat, Yoyo. We had her for about seven and a half years. She was pretty fat. She stayed in Joel's cottage though.

By the way, we all lived in cottages on the farm. They included everything you needed: a kitchen, a table, a futon, a TV, and a bathroom. The futon was placed in front of the TV; the bathroom was behind the futon. The kitchen was around the table, which was in the entryway. The cottages were pretty small; my brother had the biggest one. It was about double the size of mine and my sister's.

In the back of all our land, there was the half an acre of crops. Then there was another half an acre in between. The next row, from left to right, there was the horse stable (that only kept three, even though we only had one), the cow and sheep shed (we had five cows and two sheep), and the chicken coop (we had six chickens). The reason why we had so many cows and chicken than sheep was because you had to wait a while before the sheep's wool grew back after sheering it, as the cows gave milk everyday and the chickens laid eggs every day.

The next row, from left to right, there was my sister's cottage, another five feet between them, my cottage, a giant gap because the opening to get into our farm was a little more forward than that. That was about fifteen feet, and then my brother's cottage.

Olivia started leaving towards the gate of the farm, walking. She liked to walk places and only used Aurora if she was in a hurry. Kiwi was following her on a leash.

"And where might you be going?" I picked on her, drying off with a towel. "Hanging out with _Tristan_?" I laughed at myself.

"Oh, shut up. He's the only guy my age around here." She looked back at me; her face was a tad flushed and she left.

Tristan was the paper boy of our town. He was also the guy that Olivia liked. He was Vietnamese. He had black hair, tan skin, and brown eyes. My sister was a whole foot shorter than me. He was only a few inches shorter than me. He was _tall_. Tristan usually would wear a tank top and shorts, like the rest of the guys and girls, but he ran around shirtless if it was hot. Even though a few other guys also did that when it was hot. He was muscular too. No wonder why Olivia liked him.

I put Aurora in the horse stable and knocked on my brother's door and opened it. He was reading. He only took care of chores if he needed to cover them for me or Olivia.

"What do you need?" He said, still looking at his book.

"You know that event that happened this morning, right?" I chuckled and make a nervous smile.

He looked at me, raising one eyebrow.

"Those five falling stars," I explained to him, "are actually girls. And they have nowhere to stay. And since we have a lot of room here on the farm…" I trailed off, hoping he would catch on before I would have to start explaining more.

"That's fine, but wouldn't that cost a lot of money to build five cottages?" He put his book down, slid over to the end of his bed, and crossed his arms.

"We have a lot of money saved up, and they'll be out on the streets if we don't take them in."

"Alright, but they have to work on the farm with us. They can help with watering the plants and maybe groom the animals since we don't do that too often."

That night, at around six, I went to go tell Emma the news and to meet the other girls. I took Olivia with me so she could meet them too. Joel called Gotz Construction so they could start building the cottages, and went over to Candle-Light Valley to go buy the furniture.

"Isn't five girls living with us a dangerous thing?" She asked as we rode over to their house.

"Dangerous how?"

"I don't want them starting a party in your pants."

I rolled my eyes.

When we got there, the girls were finishing up their dinner. Me, Olivia, Emma, and Landon engaged in small talk while we waited for them to finish. We also told them about them staying over at the farm.

"So they would just have to do some work to help pay off them living with us," Olivia finished for me.

"Are you sure you have enough money?" Landon asked.

Me and Olivia looked at each other. "We'll be cut down a lot," I told them, "but we can get the money back."

Emma nodded at Landon once and he went upstairs.

"What?" Olivia asked.

"I already bought clothes and toiletries for the girls, but you'll probably need money for extra food."

After waiting a minute or two, Landon came back down the stairs, writing something in a checkbook. He ripped it out and handed it to us.

Me and Olivia looked at it; our mouths dropped open.

"A check for five thousand dollars?" I asked. My sister was still speechless.

"You'll need money." Emma reminded me.

"Thanks!" I stuffed the check in my back pocket. I usually couldn't accept something like this, but we needed the money and I had known Emma for a pretty long time.

"Emma!" One of the girls called and raised her hand. "We're done. Where do we put the plates?"

"Landon will take them." She fanned off her husband. Me and Olivia laughed. The girls came over and sat on the couch next to the one me and my sister were sitting on.

"So," I began explaining, "the cottages will be done in exactly three days. They can move in three nights from now."

"Alrighty." She said. "They don't really have many things. Are you sure five thousand is enough to take care of them and buy them the necessities?"

"You make it sound like we're poor." Olivia said in a semi-sarcastic tone. I elbowed her without turning her way.

"So," Emma changed the subject, "I'd like you to meet the girls. You've already met Bella." Bella smiled at me. Emma pointed to a girl with black hair in the back, and red bangs. Her bangs were to the side. Her right eye was gold; her left was a pale green. She was a shade darker than me and Olivia. She looked Vietnamese, but not as tan as Tristan. "This is Lily." She next pointed to a girl with brown hair, and brunette strips. Her hair was up in a messy bun, some hair fallen down, and no bangs. Her right eye was pink; her left eye was red. She was about three shades darker than me, and Mexican. "This is Layla." Next was a girl who was barely smiling at all. In fact, I kind of had to look closely to see it. Her hair was a dark burgundy in the back, and a dark magenta in the front. Her bangs were to the side, and covering her left eye. Her right eye was a light gray; almost white. She seemed one shade darker than Layla, and Philippino. "This is Diane." The last girl was really smiling. She was the one who raised her hand after dinner; she seemed really playful and friendly. She had light brown hair in the back, and a few shades darker brown in the front. She was Korean; the same shade as Lily. "And this is DaeSung." She pronounced it like "day" and she "sung" a song. They each had the same star marking Bella had on their foreheads.

The next few days were bland, plain, and boring. I just wanted to have the girls move into the farm (not for the reasons you perverted people are thinking). I just had a good feeling when I was around the girls. My sister would always make perverted jokes every few hours. She'll bring it up, I'll say I'm happy about them moving in, and she'll mumble something like "party in your pants," and make me do a spit take.

When the girls moved in, all they had were clothes, toiletries, and I got a glimpse of "feminine items".

While I was showing the girls the cottages, I saw Kiwi running around with my green stuffed bear from when I was a little kid in her mouth. She must have dug it out of an old box.

"KIWI!" I started running after her. "DROP IT!"

Kiwi was _mostly_ obedient, so she dropped the green bear and walked the other way. She had dropped the stuffed animal a little ways away. One of the girls got to it before me and picked it up.

"Is this yours?" Bella asked.

I laughed nervously. "Yeah…"

She giggled. "What's this orange circle right here?"

Teddy (I had named him that when I was about six, once I realized I had never given him a name) fell out of my arms when I was sleeping once and got burned by a lamp that was on the floor. He ended up having an oval-shaped, light orange, mark on him that was about an inch in diameter. Now he was also covered in dog slobber.

"He fell next to a lamp when he was little and got burned." I walked over to her slowly to get the bear.

"He's cute." She handed him to me.

As she handed Teddy to me and both our hands were on him, I felt a connection between us. I was already falling for someone I had just met a few days ago.

I held him in both of my hands and looked down at him. She turned around to start walking to her cottage.

"You want him?"

"What? I couldn't keep him."

"Don't worry about it. He just sits around in an old box now. I stopped hugging him in my sleep when I turned seven."

She laughed. "I can't. I–"

I handed it to Bella. She looked up at me, shocked that I gave him up so easily. I really didn't care much about the bear. It's not like some dying relative gave him to me. My parents just bought it for me when I was two. I stopped sleeping with him when I was seven; he would just lie around my room. I put him in a box when I turned ten.

After looking at me for what seemed like a lifetime, she broke the silence.

"I-I should go to bed now."

"It's only eight." I told her.

"I like to…be alone before I go to sleep." She hesitated.

"Well then, good night."

"Good night." She walked back to her cottage; I walked back to mine. Damn. She was like the perfect girl.


	2. First Day of Work

**It starts out slow-ish. I'm trying to hurry to the good parts. :]**

Chapter 2: First Day of Work

**Bella**

"It's open!" I yelled as I heard banging on my door. It opened and I pulled the covers over my head to block the light.

"Time to work!" I heard a familiar voice tell me.

I pushed the covers back off my face and looked at who was at the door. It was Damien and his gorgeous blue gray eyes. I looked over at the clock on the wall. "It's only six in the morning. Emma didn't even make us get up this early."

"She doesn't live on a farm." He was leaning on the table casually. "Get up." He sounded serious, but his face was still smirking.

"No one said anything about this."

"I didn't? My bad," he said sarcastically, teasing me.

"I thought you were nice." I teased, throwing a pillow at him.

It hit his face and fell into his arms. "And I thought you were too sweet to throw a pillow at me." He teased again, throwing it back at me. It landed on my face. "Just get up," he chuckled, leaving the cottage.

I groaned, pushing the pillow and covers off of me.

**Damien**

The only girl I would act like that around would be my sister, but she got up in the morning easily. She gets up at about five thirty and took a five-minute shower every morning except Sundays when we sleep in and do the work after lunch. That's when we go do things we want to in the morning.

When I had walked into Bella's room, the teddy bear was laying on the dresser I was leaning on. I thought people would sleep with stuffed animals. Not that I cared. But oh well.

I knocked on Lily's door after. She opened the door. She was blow drying her short hair.

"Finish up drying your hair; we have work to do." I smirked a little bit, trying not to sound cruel.

"Aw, I don't want to work!" She complained. It made me chuckle.

"Do you want to live on the streets?" I joked. I was still holding onto the door frame.

She froze a little for a few seconds, looking from left to right. "I'll be out in five minutes."

I laughed and left. My sister woke up the other three girls. She was lucky. She could walk in while I had to wait for the girls to answer me, even if it were only a couple of seconds. But I didn't want to walk in on them on any "special" moments or anything. I saw Olivia getting the other girls up while I waited for them to come out. We really needed phones in each cottage for wake up calls.

I played with Kiwi while I waited. Olivia walked over to me and started petting Kiwi. Kiwi automatically licked her face.

"How were your girls?"

I sighed. "They were…" I looked for the right words. "They complained. What about you?"

"Mine didn't complain. Layla had a hard time waking up though. I had to dump water on her to wake up."

I raised my eyebrows. "You _seriously_ dumped water on her!?"

"That was the only way she would wake up. Diane was already awake. She said she was awake since four in the morning and couldn't fall back asleep, so she was reading. And DaeSung… She was_ excited_."

I raised my eyebrows in shock again and mouthed the word "wow".

After playing with Kiwi for another ten minutes, the girls lined up in front of us.

"Okay," I started. I was pretty much trying to make it all up right on the spot. "You all are going to help watering the plants, except one of you. One of you will make us breakfast. And it's even because there's a full acre of land you have to water now that we've planted new seeds these past couple of days. Who wants to cook?"

DaeSung raised her hand and smiled.

"Alright then." I waited a second. "Wait a second, how do you guys know how to cook."

"We watch people up in the sky for seventeen years for a reason." Layla rubbed her eyes and yawned.

Me and Olivia looked at each other.

"What?" My sister asked.

"We watch down on the earth for seventeen years of life," Lily explained, "so that we know what to do when we fall into the Earth ass naked."

"Interesting…" I nodded awkwardly.

"_Anyways_…" Olivia coughed and grabbed a clipboard to write down the work.

"Okay, DaeSung–"

"Call me Dae!" She smiled.

"_Dae_…" I chuckled again. "You'll make the food in Joel– our brother's cottage. It's the bigger one over there." I pointed towards Joel's cottage. "Everything you'll need is in his fridge. He always eats out though. He leaves at six to go to do whatever. We eat breakfast at eight, which should be about when you finish watering the plants."

"Since Dae cooked," Olivia continued for me, "she'll be in charge of cleaning the dishes and, since the dishes probably won't take that long, the laundry."

"At the same time, starting at about eight-thirty, once we each finish eating breakfast, two of you will help Olivia with fishing."

"Lily! Layla! Thanks for volunteering!" My sister said, making a big and probably fake smile at them.

"So then I guess Bella and Diane will be the ones helping me with the animals." I advised them.

"You two will be in charge of grooming the animals, including Kiwi, Yoyo, and Aurora, while Damien will take care of milking the cows, sheering the sheep, getting the eggs from the chicken, and feeding them."

"Don't think that grooming is easy, though." I warned. "It takes time."

"All these chores will be done by ten." Olivia was writing everything down on her clipboard.

"Between ten and ten fifteen," I continued, "You will have a break to drink water, eat, talk, anything as long as it's on the farm. At ten fifteen, Dae will cook us lunch, since I _guess_ she's the cook." She smiled. I guessed that she liked cooking.

"As for…" She looked for a couple of the girls. "Bella and Lily, you will go with Damien to trade the goods to the farm in Candle-Light Valley. They give us the food we need to live off of instead of buying it. Besides fish. That's what fishing is for." She paused, and then continued. "Layla and Diane will help me with being your guys' maids. This way you don't have to worry about making your own beds. Then is lunch. After lunch, you can pretty much do whatever you want for the rest of the day."

"But since you girls are kind of part of the family now, we want you back here by seven, just to make sure you're okay. But you all know what you have to do right now, right?" I made sure.

They all nodded.

"If you ever forget, I'm posting it next to the door of Joel's cottage." Olivia went over and posted it.

"Who will be in charge of making dinner?" Dae asked.

"If you have money," my sister explained, "you can go out to the Hotel not too far from here, or you can take Damien or Joel to take you to a restaurant over in Candle-Light Valley since you have to be at least eighteen to cross the mountain pass by yourselves. Otherwise, we have a _lot_ of food in the fridge so that you can make your own dinner."

"Okay, go!" I directed them.

Everyone except for Dae went over to the fields, while Dae went to the kitchen to make us breakfast. My sister and I followed four of the girls over to the fields where the crops were. The views from their windows were the fields, since they lived behind them.

I directed Bella and Layla how to use the hose to water the half an acre of strawberries, while my sister showed Lily and Diane how to use the hose on the half acre of cucumbers (we had bought another hose).

They split up the chores by Layla doing the first half of the strawberries, and Layla doing the second half. Diane did the first half of the cucumbers, and Lily did the second half.

While I showed Bella and Layla how to spray the crops at the bottom, I sprayed her for a second and back on the crop.

She shook the water off her hands. "What was that for?"

"For being too slow in the morning." I sprayed her for another couple of seconds.

She took the hose from me and sprayed me. I tried blocking it with my hands, but, obviously, it didn't do anything. I took the hose back, changed the nozzle from 'shower' to 'jet', and sprayed her. Jet was the fastest, hardest, narrowest nozzle on there. It also kind of hurt it was so strong.

"Ow!" She shrieked a bit when I got her. She was able to block it with her hands the rest of the time since the nozzle was so small. Luckily, all the girls dressed in denim shorts and either white, gray, or black tank tops, like my sister dressed every day, so they could get dirty in it.

Suddenly, someone else took the hose from me, changed the nozzle back to 'shower', and completely soaked me. I didn't even try and fight back.

"You know Joel will scold us if we don't take this seriously!" Olivia told me.

"Oh, lighten up!" I said, taking the hose and sprayed her.

Kiwi immediately ran over to me and started playing in the hose and drinking the water from it. Kiwi loved the hose.

I handed the hose to Layla and me and Olivia went back to the area around our cottages. Kiwi followed us.

"Can you tighten the trucks on my short board?" She asked me. "It's turning too much again."

Until breakfast, I tightened Olivia's short board's trucks; we talked about how we didn't have to work until later, and how we could do more in the morning.

I had a short board of my own as well. Technically, they were called _long _boards, but they were shorter versions. When you rode them, it was called longboarding. We rode them down to Tristan to go get the paper.

"Hey Tristan!" Olivia said as she hopped off her board and kicked it up.

At least Tristan was wearing a shirt today, because it was a bit cool out. He was wearing a white tank top and faded black denim shorts.

"Hi, Olivia." He smiled at my sister. I didn't know Tristan also called my sister 'Olivia'.

"Thanks for the paper." I held out my hand to get it from him.

**Olivia**

"Hey, Damien…" Tristan laughed nervously and handed my brother the paper. "How have you been?"

"Good," Damien answered while glaring at Tristan.

"You want to go now?" I asked my brother.

"Sure. I thought you would want to stay longer, but whatever." He got on his board.

Him getting on his board was exactly what I wanted. Once he was on, I pushed him down this grassy hill. Grassy plus wheels equals bad. He fell off his board and began rolling down the hill.

"So when do you want to hang out again?" Tristan asked, ignoring my brother.

"How about after lunch today?"

"Sounds great. I'll meet you at the usual spot." He kissed my forehead and walked away. My forehead was at the bottom of his nose, so it was perfect height. Our 'usual spot' was behind the waterfall. Next to the waterfall there was a hole in the wall that was covered up by a sheet. It used to be an old dig site, but they couldn't find anything except the escape behind the waterfall. No one uses it besides us though.

"OLIVIA!" Damien scolded, walking up the hill with leaves in his hair and holding a half a shortboard in each hand. I covered my mouth in shock, raising my eyebrows.

"Sorry…"

"You're lucky the general store gives insurance for this kind of thing." He waved the halves of his shortboard in front of my face on 'this'.

**Bella**

Me, Layla, Lily, and Diane watered the plants with about five minutes spare time before Damien and Ollie came back, went into Joel's cottage, and came back out yelling "breakfast!"

"Where'd you two go earlier?" Lily asked while eating the amazing breakfast.

"We went to the Blue Bar." Ollie answered.

"You went to a _bar_?!" I asked.

"Not _that_ type of bar, you idiot." I pursed my lips and brought my eyebrows together at Damien's insult.

"It's not _all_ alcohol. It's just a nice place to relax." Damien explained, not so insulting.

I stuck my tongue out at him from across the table. He stuck his out back at me.

"You two are such children." Ollie commented.

It was true; we were. We were still friends, at least I _thought_ so, but we liked to pick on each other. I guess.

After breakfast, Lily and Layla left with Ollie to go fishing. Me and Diane stayed with Damien to help with the animals as planned. He showed us how to wash a cow, sheep, and Aurora. He said that you only wash a boxer (Kiwi) once every six months and you don't wash chicken. After you wash them, you brush them. He showed us how to do that as well, as well as Kiwi, since it's only brushing her.

Damien was pretty quick at his job. The sheep didn't have any sheering since it takes time for them to grow their wool. He milked the cows just much faster than we washed and brushed them. He had plastic buckets for the milk. From five cows, he got two full buckets. He put a plastic top on them and put them in Joel's over-sized fridge. He put the eggs from the chicken in an egg carton. They had saved up a _lot_.

Washing and brushing the cows was a little scary. I didn't want to annoy one and have it kick me in the face. So once Damien was done with his job, he helped me.

He looked at his watch once we were all done. Me and Diane fell down on the grass and started laying there. It had gotten hotter while we were working.

"We're a couple minutes into your break." He informed us. Me and Diane groaned. Mine was louder than hers. I closed my eyes to take a short nap.

"Hey," Damien greeted. "Did you guys get any fish?"

"Just four." Ollie sounded a little sad about it. I looked up. The fish were decent-sized.

"Is there anything in particular you want for lunch?" Dae suddenly asked.

We all shrugged.

"Are sandwiches fine?" She asked.

We all nodded. She then sat down next to me and Diane laying on the sand-ish ground. We got dirty with the cows anyways (not in _that_ sort of way).

"Sorry you're stuck in a room all day," Ollie apologized to Dae, still holding the fish.

"It's alright." She assured.

"Do you know how to cook fish?" Ollie asked.

"Certain ways." Dae coughed then smiled sweetly at Ollie.

"There's a _bunch_ of cookbooks on Joel's bookshelf if you need help."

**Damien**

"You girls want some water?" I asked. They all nodded. We headed over to the ice chest next to Joel's cottage (everything seemed to be around or in his cottage). Olivia went inside to put the fish in the other ice chest. When she came out, I asked her a question while we got the waters.

"So how are the girls?"

"They both complained a lot about being bored waiting for the fish to bite. What about you?"

"They were good…Afraid of the cows…"

I grabbed four waters; Olivia grabbed three.

We got back over and tossed the bottles to the girls.

***

As Bella, Lily, and I made our way over to the Candle-Light Valley, I carried the buckets of milk since they were probably too heavy for the girls to carry.

"If there are no crops to pick and nothing else to carry, then why do we have to go with you?" Bella complained.

The crops would be ready in another two or three days. We would keep a little bit of some of them, and sell the rest for other ingredients we needed.

"For Lily," I started, "so she doesn't get fat. For you," I talked towards Bella, "so you don't get fatt_er_." I teased. I bet she made a gasping face. She wasn't fat at all; she was even more gorgeous than when I first met her. And I was still falling for her. Messing with her was just fun. She kicked my leg and I dropped the buckets, holding my back, lower right leg. Luckily, we were on a flat part of the hill, so the milk didn't spill.

I got my grip back on the handles of the buckets. I grunted slightly while picking up the buckets. I could feel my body sweating under my tank-top. It had gotten hotter from this morning, and the sun was beating down on me.

We got to the farm in Candle-Light Valley and I felt like I was going to have a heat stroke. I knocked on the door. Mason opened the door.

"Damien!" We shook hands. "Good to see you. Keira's inside doing inventory. Come on in."

We went inside. The girls immediately sat down on two random chairs. It was nice and cool in there. I put the buckets on the floor and started fanning myself.

"Hi, Damien!" We shook hands. "You three want some water?" Keira offered.

We all nodded.

"Don't take this the wrong way," Mason said, "but who are you girls?"

"They are the stars that fell a few nights ago." I explained as Keira gave us glasses of water.

I drank the glass of water and put it on the counter to next to the sink in their little inventory room.

"I have two buckets of milk for you, like always."

"I'll get you your usual." Keira left the room.

"Can you two girls go outside?" Mason asked. "I need to talk to Damien alone." They listened to him and left.

Once the door closed, I took off my shirt. "Oh god it's hot. So what do you need to talk about?"

"Damien," he started panicking, "Ace is going to propose to my _sister_!"

"Is that a problem?" I asked, nonchalantly.

"They barely know each other. I don't want her to make the biggest mistake of her life!" He went on, talking at a million words a minute. "She doesn't know too much about guys yet. She doesn't really date, so I'm not sure if she would accept or not—!"

"Okay!" I interrupted. "Dude, calm down. Where did you hear this from anyways?"

"He was talking to a guy in the super market about how he had a blue feather and wanted to ask Keira. I totally do _not_ approve!"

First off, Ace was just a guy living in the town. He was really down to Earth; there really wasn't anything bad about him. A lot of girls liked him and he was a real charmer.

Second off, a blue feather was something you had to find. It's not like they were extremely rare or anything, it would just appear somewhere random only when you were really ready to propose to a girl.

"How does he have a blue feather? Is he seriously ready to propose?"

"He said that his dad had two, because he was going to propose to two women."

"Sounds like a prick." I commented. "Just tell your sister about it or tell Ace that you don't approve." If you were the brother, mom, or dad and told them you didn't approve, they couldn't propose to them.

He nodded and we went outside. The girls stared at me for a second.

Keira handed me two grocery bags, and one to each of the girls and we walked back to the farm.


	3. First Day of Work Part 2

Chapter 3: First Day of Work Part 2

**Bella**

I couldn't get the image of Damien without a shirt on out of my head. He was actually good-looking. It wasn't like he was so hot that I couldn't take my eyes off him; it just shocked me that he actually looked good. I did kind of stare at his back the whole way back to the farm.

I opened my eyes.

"What are you up to?" Damien asked. He was bending down over me, the top of his head pointing south, the top of mine pointing north. (AN: Like what Drew Seely did to Selena Gomez in that movie "Another Cinderella Story".)

He speaking made me realize that he was above me and I was lying down on a random patch of grass. I jumped and hit my forehead to his.

"God!" I whisper-yelled, rubbing my forehead. I didn't want to disturb the peace and quiet.

"Damn it!" Damien was rubbing his forehead too. "I come over here to see if you were okay and you hit me."

"It was an accident and you're the one that got so close." He stood up, picking up two halves of a broken shortboard that were lying next to me. "Where are you going?"

"My sister made me break my shortboard so I need to go trade it in for a new one."

I nodded and he started walking the other way. I laid back down.

"You want to go to dinner?" He asked. I looked up at him.

"Like…on a…date?" I asked very slowly.

"What? No!" He chuckled. "Just go out to dinner."

"I have no money."

"Don't worry; I have money. There's a great buffet in town that's only ten dollars per person. And we can go in the shops and stuff like that." He stuck out his hand to help me up.

"Okay," I smiled, "sure," I said, taking his hand.

**Lily**

"This thing is awesome!" I said to myself. Some people passing by looked at me weird. Music was coming out of it through little white things you put in your ears. I think they called it an 'iPod'. Olivia lent it to me. She said if I made myself enough money, I could buy myself one. And I wanted my own _really_ bad.

I walked on a bridge over a river that came from a waterfall, and ran into the ocean. As I was going through the different songs on Olivia's iPod, I heard someone yell, "Look out!" I turned around to see what it was about, when something crashed into me and sent me flying into the river.

Luckily, it wasn't that deep. Just about a foot, actually. But it was really rocky. I think my hand got a few cuts from them. I opened my eyes and realized there was a boy stuck to me. His hands were holding the back of my head, protectively.

_SHIT, the iPod. _

It was still in my hand, not wet at all, somehow. One of the ear buds had fallen out of my ear.

I was worried about the iPod and then I saw the boy's arm. There was a giant gash. Blood was streaming down and into the river. Then I noticed our bodies were stopping a long board that was broken in half.

He pulled away from me. "I didn't see you there, you were all sneaky, sneaky. Are you alright?"

The whole 'sneaky, sneaky' thing made me want to giggle, but then his eyes were looking into mine, seriously. When I looked closely, the gash wasn't his only scar. He had what looked like a giant tiger scratch mark on his face, and tons of miscellaneous scars all over his chest and arms.

Did I mention he was shirtless?

He had really nice green eyes too that fit his tan, muscular body and dark brown hair.

Then I realized I was probably staring at him for too long.

"Am _I_ alright? Look at _your _arm!"

"Well, yeah, but as you can see," he looked at some of his battle wounds, "I'm kind of used to it."

I stared at his scars a little longer.

"But my head does hurt." He looked back up at the bridge. It was about five feet above the river. When he stood up, I could see he was tall enough to reach that. "Hold on a sec," he told me. The boy jumped up, grabbing the edge of the bridge, and pulling himself up.

I stood up and stuffed the iPod in my back pocket. He stuck out his hand. I then realized I was too short for that. He looked at me, and his eyes began to close.

"Is something wrong?" I asked.

His hand dropped. He had passed out right there on the bridge. I pursed my lips and made some sort of pouty-face. "Jeez," I said to myself. Then I saw red liquid running out from the back of his head.

"HEY," I called out, "ANYONE OUT THERE?"

No answer.

I sighed, closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and white wings sprouted out of my back. We were only supposed to use them during crucial times. Hopefully, no one was watching. My feet lifted out of the river and brought me to the bridge. My wings disappeared as I landed.

I pulled his arm over my shoulder, trying to drag him back to the farm. Took long enough; he was heavy.

***

"Ugh," he finally woke up. He was lying on my bed. I had just finished wrapping his arm up in gauze and was padding the back of his head with a towel. "Where am I?"

"My home." I stopped for a second to rephrase my answer. "Well, I wouldn't really consider it my home yet; I just moved in."

"How come you didn't just take me to the hospital?"

"Do you know how far that is? You're heavy and I'm… small." I padded the back of his head more. The bleeding was starting to let up. "What happened anyways?"

"What do you mean?"

"You crashed into me."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. Something just happened not too long ago and it's just kind of been bothering me. I wasn't paying attention."

"It's okay." I soaked the bloody towel. "So, what happened?"

He looked at me wondering why I was asking. "Well, I was going to propose to this girl, but then her brother wouldn't give me consent, and she rejected me anyways."

"Why would she reject _you_?" Did that just come out of my mouth?

He sat up, "well, I wasn't really dating her…"

I dropped the towel and looked at him, "you proposed to a girl when you weren't dating her? Of course she's going to reject you!"

"So much for your sympathy."

"I'm serious! I mean, what do you expect a girl to like in you when she hasn't even met you?"

"Yeah…" He chuckled. "I'm Ace."

"Lily." I smiled.

**Bella**

"So when my parents divorced, they asked my brother who he wanted to go over to, and whoever he went over to, the opposite person would get me." Damien told me as I ate a piece of fried shrimp. "Even though my brother was only seven, he knew that our mother didn't treat us very well. She was lazy, cruel, and always made us do her work for her."

"You were two," I reminded him. "How could you, one, remember this and two, be forced to work?"

He finished drinking some of his water. "One, it's one of those things that you never forget and two, my mother had her ways. Anyways, My brother chose my dad, but he told them that he wasn't going to let me go. So we both went with my dad. He got married a year later, and after another couple of years, had my sister. Our new mother was everything you could want in a mother."

"Wow," I said, sipping my water. "I wonder what it's like to have parents. Wait, so then where does Olivia fit into the picture?"

"Right before my parents got divorced, my mom had cheated on my dad and got pregnant with Olivia. That's why she had blonde hair instead of brown."

There was a silence for a minute.

"Can I ask you a question?"

"Sure." What else did he want to know about me?

"Can you explain to me how all this star stuff happens?"

"Well…" I began, trying to figure out how to put it all in words. "Every ten years, five stars fall. Like Lily said, we watch down on the Earth until we're 'seventeen' years old and then fall into the ground. We're born from a glowing ball of light, like a fetus, and we change into a baby, then a child, a teenager, just like a normal human, and then we're sent down to Earth."

"And you already know how everything works?"

"That's why we watch down on the Earth until we're 'seventeen'."

"Do you age?"

I nodded and sipped my water again.

"Why would God create something that's exactly the same as humans, just prettier?" Was he flirting?

I giggled. "It's more like paranormal activity. As far as we know, there isn't any God. But that's just our guess. It's planted in our minds when we're 'born' that our goal when we come down to Earth is to make it a better place for humans who just cause problems."

"Have you been successful so far?" He sounded like an interviewer.

"Some stars become so influenced by humans in this world. Others can turn into a human, in a way." His eyebrows scrunched a bit, so I proceeded to explain. "If we fulfill our duties and make a more positive influence on at least one person's life within a couple years, then we can stay here and turn into normal humans. If we do not make a more positive influence on someone's life, and possibly turn into one of those humans that make the world a worse place, then they will turn into dust.

But it can't be something as simple as saving someone from slipping on a banana peel. You'd have to been someone they'd remember for awhile for influencing their life."

"That doesn't sound very easy."

"It seems… so-so." I took a bite of my food, sipped my water, and continued. "There are also… other ways."

He looked at me confused. "Like what."

My heart began to speed up. _What's happening? _

"Like…" I began to mumble, "falling in love."

"Oh," he looked down at his plate. _Is he smiling to himself? _

Another silence.

I ran my finger around the edge of my glass. "Have you ever…" My face began to get warm.

"Hmm?" He looked up at me.

"Have you ever…" I hesitated, "fallen in love?"

His eyes widened. "Ah, well, you know…" His voice was shaky. "Once… I thought I did."

I was sitting there, waiting for him to keep going and keep giving me more details, but he didn't. He just looked at me. What was actually about a second, seemed like forever. We were just sitting there, staring at each other. It felt like we were the only two in the entire restaurant.

**Damien**

When we left the restaurant, there was a nice sunset. We went in the general store and I gave them my short board to fix for a few days. Bella was looking at the bottles of stardust on necklace chains.

"You think these are real?" She asked.

"Real what?"

"Real stardust. Do you think they're real?"

"I didn't even know there was such thing." I only knew there were these bottles of silvery powder.

I grabbed the one she had been staring at and gave it the cashier.

"What are you doing?"

"You want it?" I asked, smirking.

"You don't have to buy it for me!"

"There you go being all nice again." I pinched her cheek and started to pull on it. "You were all grumpy this morning."

"Ow!" She pulled my hand from her face. "I was tired then."

"How would you know?" I gave money to the cashier. "This is your first morning waking up." The cashier gave the necklace back to me.

"I just found out this morning." She pursed her lips.

"Turn around." I told her.

"Huh?"

"Just do it." I said, smirking again.

She did as she was told. I reached the necklace over her head, brought the chain around her neck, and clipped it together. She swept her hair so that it was over the necklace chain. Bella was the perfect name for her.

"You two make such a cute couple." The cashier said.

"We're not a couple!" We both said.

I turned to face Bella. "Your cheeks are red," I pointed out.

She covered her cheeks. "Let's just go."

As we were walking back, I was walking on Bella's left. Her right hand was holding her upper left arm. Her left hand was dangling. I wanted to hold it. _If only she came to Earth not knowing anything_, I thought. But it wouldn't be real if I were pretending.

***

We got back to find Lily and some guy running around playing with Kiwi. The guy had gauze around his arm and head. The guy was tan; that was all I could make out of him at the moment. But when we got up closer to him and he turned to face us, we could see that he had a claw-shaped scar on his lower left cheek, and miscellaneous scars all over the rest of his body. He appeared around the same age as me; the same height.

I cleared my throat and Kiwi came running over to me. Her body began to wiggle out of control as it always did when she first noticed Olivia or me. Lily and the other guy looked up at me. "Lily, who is this and why is he running around with my dog?"

"This is Ace," Lily said. My body went into a state of semi-paralysis from hearing the name earlier that day. "He's from Candle-Light Valley."

"Hey, sorry I'm intruding," he apologized in a matured voice. Yep, the same age as me, I was pretty sure. "Your dog is so much fun."

"So, why are you here?" I said rather protectively.

I began to think that I was getting protective – not only over Bella, but also over all of the girls. After what Bella had explained to me, it was probably a good idea to make sure they had a happy life. It wasn't like I wanted them to leave; they were a benefit to everyone. They helped my sister and me out in the farm, so we had more free time. For my sister personally, she had girls she could talk to about whatever girl stuff comes to mind (I'm not exactly the one she should be talking to about that 'girl business').

"He got knocked out," Lily answered, smiling at him, "and then I helped him over here."

"Why do you look paler?" Bella asked suddenly.

Now that she mentioned it, Lily did look paler, more tired. You could see purple circles under her eyes if you looked closely.

Bella mouthed something indistinctly to Lily.

She replied, "Yes, I did," in a whisper-yell, before walking past Bella. "C'mon, Ace, I'll take you back."

"Who's going to take you back," I asked. "You're not eighteen."

"It's fine," Ace said, seeming a little disappointed. "I'll walk by myself; it's no big deal."

"Are you sure?" Lily asked worriedly.

"Yeah."

"Why don't you come over for dinner tomorrow?" Lily asked, turning to me, "if it's alright with you, Damien."

"Yeah, sure." I said out of impulse. I wasn't really excited about this guy coming back to my house, but Lily seemed to have taken a liking to him.

"Alright," Ace waved at us, then turned his attention back to Lily, "I'll see you tomorrow then."

Lily nervously tucked her hair behind her ear and smiled.

* * *

**Oh my goodness, this took me long enough to write out. I stopped doing this for awhile, but my editor wanted me to keep writing this. She loves the Lily & Ace part of the story (LOL, AKA, the character that's based off of her). I love you, Nganny! :D Just keep nagging me & I'll finish this story for you (and the 2 other fans I have reading this story, hahah).  
**


	4. Screaming

**AN: I just realized I never thoroughly described Bella, or at least I'm pretty sure I didn't, which is weird because I could have sworn that I did. So I'll *discreetly* put it somewhere in this chapter. ;D **

**Also, I'm not sure if I explained the significance to Bella's name yet either, so that's in here as well. :] **

Chapter 4: Screaming 

**Damien**

I was dreaming about shooting stars. Or, it looks more like comets. Or meteors, if there were a difference. I never studied Astrology. There were five falling meteors. I was watching it happen, not like I was one of the meteors. I wasn't standing in range that they could hit me.

But then I realized they weren't meteors; they were stars.

But something was off. This wasn't the places the Bella and the others fell. It was different in a way.

Then something small and silver—in the shape of a star flew in front of my face. I thought I saw eyes on it, but I reminded myself it was a dream.

Then the stars hit the Earth with a _boom_ and I woke up.

My body flew forward so that I was sitting up. I heard a pounding on my door similar to the _boom_ in my dream. I groaned.

"What the hell are you doing?" I heard a familiar voice yell the question at me. "Get up!"

I turned to face the clock. _6:22_. I fell back in my bed. "I'm tired!" I yelled as if I were drunk. That's how I sounded when I was tired.

"Yeah?" My sister said. "I don't care. Get up or I'll break the door down!"

I rolled over to look back at the clock again.

_Woah, wait a second! _I jumped out of my bed so I was standing on my feet. "Why am I sleeping in so late?" I grumbled to myself. 6:20 in the morning was late for me. "I'll be out in a minute."

"It's eighty degrees out here, by the way." My sister said, pissed at me. "I'm not kidding."

I took off my sweat pants and pulled on a pair of shorts. Before I put on a shirt, I stepped outside to actually feel how warm it would be that day.

I stepped outside and stood there for a second and took in the warmth of the air. I took a deep breath in as well. I smelt the familiar scent of hay. But I smelt something else. Something I adored. I turned my head towards where the smell was coming from, only to find a very impatient Bella standing next to my door. Her arms were crossed, waiting for me to finish getting ready.

The smell of my favourite fruit – pineapple – was coming from her. It was probably some sort of perfume she was wearing. She was wearing a blue and white striped camisole, short (_short_) shorts, and white flip flops. If my sister were dressed like this, then I would have told her to go back inside and change or I wouldn't let her see Tristan that day, but I learned throughout the week that I couldn't tell Bella what to do. Her long, golden blonde hair had lost its curl and was tied in a pony tail to the side, falling over the front of her right shoulder. Her almost platinum-blonde bangs were left down, swept to the right side. Her one blue eye and one purple eye (multi-coloured like the rest of the girls) were looking up at me.

"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," she gave me an annoyed smile. I had already learned this was her way of teasing me.

"How did you have time to straighten your hair," I asked.

Her eyes blinked in shock. "I woke up at five this morning. Isn't that funny?"

Then I noticed she was wearing the necklace I gave her. I tried hard not to smile at the sight, but I failed. Then I looked closer. The stardust inside the bottle looked like it was moving. It didn't seem to be doing that a few days ago. It had been a few days since her first day of work –it was Monday, now it was Friday.

"Yeah, it is considering the first day you were whining _so_ much not to get up at six in the morning," I teased.

"Isn't that what you were doing in there a minute ago?" She pointed at my bed. I realized I was still standing half inside the room, half outside. I took another step towards her; she stood perfectly still, except for her arms, which went back to their folded position across her chest.

I realized I was standing there, smirking at her while her arms were folded across her chest. We were staring into each other's eyes. Her face dropped the defensive look.

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Like what?" _Your eyes are just gorgeous_, I wanted to add, but couldn't.

She seemed to be glancing up and down at me and hesitated to speak. "Just go get a shirt on, shirtless man." She began to walk away.

Thirty seconds later I came back out of the cottage with a tank top and flip flops on. Bella was walking slowly away from the cottage, as if she were waiting for me.

"You haven't met shirtless man until you've hung around Olivia's boyfriend enough," I said, catching up with her.

Bella rolled her eyes.

We began walking toward the crops to water them. "So I'm guessing you didn't have time to practice your ballet this morning since you were straightening your hair?" I made it sound more like a question than a statement.

She stopped walking, looked up at me, grabbed her right arm with her left hand, blushed, then looked down at the ground. "It's important to me, okay?"

Tuesday of this week, the blinds to Bella's window were open. I wasn't peeking or anything, but I saw something moving around in there, so I went to go see what it was. I saw her dancing. Ballet dancing to be specific. I knocked on her door, and I guess she seemed a little bit tired. I still wasn't quite sure why she was dancing so early in the morning.

This was when she explained to me what her name meant. If you used her full name—Bellarina, and switched the e and first a, it would spell ballerina.

I grabbed the hose, "You girls are so PMS-y."

"What's that supposed to mean?" She grabbed the other one.

"You're all nice when I first meet you," I began watering the plants as I spoke," the next morning, you're all grumpy. Later that day, you get all timid when I try to buy you something because I'm glad I met you." Did I just say that to her out loud? "I'm just saying." I chuckled a bit.

I felt something cold on my legs. I looked down at them, and my eyes followed to where it was coming from. Bella was spraying me with the hose.

At first I thought she was really mad at me for what I had just said, but when I saw she was smiling.

I turned my hose towards her, spraying her legs. She screamed. I turned the nozzle to the 'center' setting. It was a lot like the 'shower' setting, but the water came out faster, and it was more centered (hence the name). I sprayed a little more up her legs, almost to where it would hit her shorts.

She switched her nozzle. I'm guessing –by the way the water came out, it was the 'fan' setting. I chased her a bit, getting her torso wet. She screamed when the cold water hit her. When the water hit me, I jumped a little bit, but it felt nice.

After a little bit of chasing each other, she switched her nozzle to the 'jet' setting. (AN: I know this is on every hose. I'm not sure why they have it, but I just like spraying my friends with it.) It's simply a line of water, but it comes out really hard and hurts when it hits your skin.

"Ow!" I yelled. "You're gonna get it now!" I dropped the hose and started running after her. She dropped the hose as well and started to run.

It didn't take much to catch her. We kind of ran around in circles, though. Earlier in the week I had told her about how to lock the hose, so you wouldn't have to keep pressing the handle when you wanted it to spray. So the hoses were on the ground, facing up. Water was falling on us as if it were raining.

I picked her up, my hands around her stomach. I was spinning her around and she was yelling at me to put her down. I could tell by her tone that she wasn't mad, though. I began to get dizzy, which probably meant she was too, so I put her back on the ground.

She turned so her back wasn't facing me anymore. "I'm soaking wet!"

"You started it!" We were yelling in a very jokingly-type way. We were both still getting wet; the nozzles from the hoses were still facing up. The others were probably staring at us, I didn't really care. This was probably considered flirting, but I just wanted to have a little fun.

We were both just standing there, staring into each other's eyes. The curl had gone from her hair. It was dripping wet, along with the rest of her body. I realized I was leaning in closer and closer to her, but I didn't stop. All I had to do was lean down and–

"Ahem." Someone clearing their throat caused me to lose train of my thoughts, and I back away from Bella. I hadn't yet reached up to hold her face in my hands, although I wanted to. "You're wasting water," Joel said. He clearly wasn't happy with us spending out working time messing around. I saw he had turned off the water that was spraying us, as it wasn't showering our heads anymore.

I had to admit, I was a little annoyed that Joel ruined our moment, but he was right. We were wasting water.

I began to say sorry, when Bella beat me to it.

"Sorry," she said nervously, "it's my fault."

Was she scared of Joel?

"Just get back to work, Bella." Joel turned his attention towards me, "Damien, can I speak with you?"

**Bella**

"Sure," he said. I could have sworn his eyes flickered to me for half a second before following Joel into his cottage.

"Woah, what was that?" Ollie was facing me with her arms crossed and a smirk on her face. I looked at the rest of the girls. They all had ecstatic smiles on their faces.

"What do you mean 'what'?" I asked.

"What was that—with Damien?"

"I don't know what you're talking about." I said honestly. I really didn't know what had just happened myself.

"So then why is your face all red," Olivia pointed out.

"It's still red!?" I covered my face.

"How can you be so clueless!?" Layla exclaimed out of nowhere. Although, the others were probably all thinking it. Next to Dae, I was probably the most clueless one out of us five. "You didn't notice—?"

"Don't tell her what happened," Ollie cut her off in a stage whisper. (AN: a stage whisper is pretty much whisper-yelling, but it's what actors do during plays. Just wanted to let you know, since I'll probably use the word a lot in the future).

All the girls' smiles had faded. I guessed they saw my face as I was trying to look for an answer to Ollie's question, but I didn't know what to say. I never really got what was about to happen.

The water from my body had dried off in the heat, but my clothes were still dripping wet. I went to pick up the hose, when Lily stopped me.

"Why don't you get dried up," she offered. "We'll finish up out here."

"Why?" I protested. "It's not like I'm hurt or anything."

"Yeah, but you're so soaked that you look like a wet, miserable cat," Lily pointed out.

I nodded and turned to go back to my cottage.

**Damien**

"Sure," I said to Joel in the calmest tone I could. I wanted to stay outside and help Bella dry off. She was just standing there sopping wet, in a way that made think she was scared of Joel. Of course, Olivia and I both say things like 'knock it off or Joel will get mad,' all the time, but we weren't scared of him. Olivia ditched work for a couple hours once to go hang out with Tristan, and I had to cover for her.

"What?" I asked in an exasperated tone after I slammed the door to Joel's room.

We both paused for a second, realizing DaeSung was standing right there cooking us breakfast.

"Sorry," Joel said, backing out of the room, "my bad."

"It's alright," Dae said, smiling sweetly. "You can stay in here if you would like. It's your room anyways."

"No, it's okay." Joel replied. I started backing out with him. "We'll see you at breakfast then."

Dae simply smiled and went back to cooking. It smelled like she was making pancakes. It made me happy.

We backed out of the room and into my cottage. I hate the reduced amount of space I had compared to Joel.

"What do you want to talk about?" I complained in a very sarcastic tone.

Joel turned to me with a very serious look on his face. Joel always looked at least somewhat serious, but this time, it was different.

"Damien," he said, staring into me, "I need to talk to you seriously."

_It's like he read my mind. _

"What is it?"

"I don't want you getting to close to these girls." His expression hadn't changed until I scoffed. Then he looked a little surprised.

"So, we invite girls to live with us, but I can't get to know them?"

"It's the way you're getting to know _her_." He said calmly.

"What's that supposed to mean!?" I raised my voice.

"You told me about how if a star doesn't make good choices, she'll turn into dust." I had told him, just to let him know. Maybe it was a mistake.

"Why would she turn into dust?" I felt the anger build up inside me.

"What if something happens and she's not who you think she is?"

"Why do you think she would do something like that, huh!?" I exploded. "Why can't you just trust my opinion on this!?"

He began to yell, too. "It's not that I don't trust your opinion, Damien. It's just that—"

"It's that you don't trust them," I cut him off. "I know; I've heard this a thousand times."

"Then when are you actually going to start listening to me?" He raised his voice above mine. I could tell he was trying to make a point.

My voice wouldn't yell that loud, but I tried anyways. "Why do I have to listen to you anyways? You're not my dad!"

"I'm your older brother, and I'm in charge of you—"

I cut him off again. "You're not in charge of me anyways. I'm not a minor anymore, if you haven't noticed." I shouted sarcastically.

"Would you just listen to me!?" He grabbed my shirt, warning me.

I grabbed his shirt, accepting his threat.

"What if something happens and you can't be with her anymore?" He lowered his voice. "I know how you get when you're depressed, Damien."

"You're not one to talk!" I didn't bother to lower my own voice. "I know you've started liking one of them, too."

He hesitated before starting again. "That's not the point. The point is—"

Joel was cut off by the door swinging open.

"Would you two, please—" Olivia cut herself off (I was pretty much the only one in the room who could make a full sentence), comprehending what she was seeing.

Joel let go of my shirt, so I let go of his. We both looked at each other for a second, anger still in his eyes.

"Would you two please not yell so loud?" Olivia continued.

"Do you even know what he—" There went my full-sentence streak.

"I don't care!" Okay, Olivia won. She could yell the loudest out of us three. "Joel, I need to talk to Damien."

"Sure," he murmured, and then walked away, slamming the door on the way out.

"Why can't you two put up a conversation without fighting for once?" Olivia's tone was dripping with annoyance.

"So, you guys could hear us?" I was barely talking – more like mumbling, actually. My throat was a little sore from yelling too much.

"Well," she started, "we couldn't make out the words you were saying. But we could tell you two were yelling."

"What did they say?" I looked down at the floor. I didn't want them getting a bad impression.

"They were just wondering what was going on," she explained. "I lied and told them I didn't know, but of course I knew it was something _stupid_." She whacked my arm on 'stupid'. "What was it about this time?"

"He didn't want me getting close to them?"

Olivia winced in shock. "By them you mean…"

"Mostly Bella." I didn't look Olivia in the eye. I was afraid she would still think the fight was stupid.

"That's stupid!" She exclaimed.

Here we go.

"You're just being protective; there's nothing wrong with that." Her eyebrows pulled together.

I looked her in the eye, surprised that she actually took my side for once.

"But still, you didn't have to yell so loudly."

"What happened to the 'there's nothing wrong with being protective'?" I tried to imitate my sister's voice when I quoted her.

"Do you really want them thinking that you're a teenager with a hot temper?"

"Isn't that what you say I am all the time, though?" Saying that caused me to get whacked again.

***

The day passed by pretty quickly, but only because I was thinking about the fight between me and Joel. After I thought about it, I wondered if Joel would actually hit me or not. His eyes were filled with anger after I said that he had his eyes set on one of the girls, as well.

When I constantly spaced out, thinking about the fight, Bella asked me if I was alright. She would ask 'are you alright?', so then I would say 'why do you even care?' and she would make a comeback something like 'I don't, stupid'. This happened probably twenty times that day.

During dinner, I wasn't really sure where all the girls went, and that included my sister. I made myself instant macaroni and cheese for dinner and brought it back to my room. I turned the TV on to the news. They were reporting the meteor shower (falling stars) that happened Monday morning. They had reported this three times already. They said people from the neighboring town had seen them fall, but no video was captured, and that investigators were still figuring out where the 'meteors' had gone. I rolled my eyes at the TV.

Not many people knew that the girls were actually fallen stars. It was just me, my sister, Joel, Emma, and Landon. I was _pretty _sure no one outside of that knew.

At about eight o' clock, I went back to wash my bowl. Something was weird. Every night, the girls and my sister had been star gazing around this time of night. _Where did they all go? _I wondered.

I knocked on Bella's door first. After two knocks, I wondered what she would say when she answered. I felt a little panicky, but no one answered the door. I knocked again. No answer.

I went around to Olivia's room next. I could hear creepy music coming from inside.

Then I heard a giant _slam_, and screaming.

"What's going on!?" I burst through the door.

They screamed at my random encounter; I yelled (screaming is too girly) as their harmonized screams scared me. I had a headache from all the screaming and yelling today.

"_You caught me," _The TV said, "_You can hug me now; I'm clean._" It was that blonde step mom person. She's such a—

"What are you doing here?" Olivia held up a remote and pressed the pause button.

"I was wondering where you all went." I brushed a hand through my hair. "What's going on?" I still felt a little jumpy; my heartbeat had only begun to slow down.

"We're watching a movie."

"What movie?" I asked.

"_The Uninvited._" Lily answered. "It's the scariest movie I've ever seen." Her fists were clenching a blanket.

"It's the only scary movie you've ever seen," I reminded her.

"It's not even that scary," Layla looked sleepy at the moment. I guessed she wasn't an easily scared person, like my sister.

When my sister and I saw this movie together, she only jumped a few times, like me. It was my sister: I could be scared in front of her and it wouldn't embarrass me (not that the movie was scary), but she teased me anyways.

I looked around. They were all sitting with their backs up against the side of the bed. Bella was sitting on the end of the row of girls with her knees tucked in to her chest, with a scared expression on her face. To the right of Bella was my sister. Olivia was still giving me a why-are-you-here look. Lily was to the right of her, clinging to the blanket. Layla was to her right and looked like she about to fall asleep, resting her head on Lily's shoulder. Diane was sitting with her legs crossed on the very right; no emotions on her face whatsoever. But there was one girl missing.

"Where's Dae?" I asked, looking around to room trying to find her. It's not like there was that much space to look around, though.

"Right here!" A bulge in the blanket on the bed jumped up.

"Why are you under the covers?"

"The movie scared me," she said from under the blanket, descending back into the bed.

"The sister and mom died and she went to hide," Layla explained.

The girls looked cute; they were all in pajamas. _Is this what a slumber party is like_?

"I'll be right back," I said before I went back to my cabin. All I did was change my pants and I was back in Olivia's cabin.

I sat next to Bella (of course).

Diane and Layla didn't do and screaming at all. Layla ended up falling asleep five minutes after I sat down with them. I could hear DaeSung shrieking from under the blankets, but it started to fade around halfway through the movie. Bella, Diane, and Lily fell asleep near the end of the movie. Me and my sister fell asleep not too long after that.

**AN: Chiisana (AKA, the girl that DaeSung is based off of) would totally hide under the blankets if we started watching a scary movie around her.**

**Thank you, my lovely editor, Nganny! :D **


	5. How to Conjugate 'To Love'

Chapter 5: How to Conjugate 'To Love'

**Damien**

My eyes fluttered open. I looked at the clock. _2:33_. I assumed it was A.M, since it was still dark outside. I felt pressure on my right shoulder—or, it was more in the area between my shoulder and my collarbone. I felt a head, and I didn't want to wake whoever it was, so I just moved my vision down the farthest it would go.

Bella was sleeping—almost snuggling—on me. I sighed. _No reason to not enjoy this moment_, I thought.

I saw a light out of the corner of my eye. I slowly moved my vision back to the blonde. But I had to look at her chest to see what was glowing, which made me feel a bit uncomfortable.

The bottle on the necklace I had given her was no longer just a pile of sand. I had to _very carefully_ lift the tiny bottle up. I held it between my index finger and my thumb. Looking closely, I could see a silver-coloured star had formed in it. But the stardust wasn't completely gone. It was moving up towards the star in a swirling motion, as if it were gathering on the star.

_I knew I had seen it move!_

Bella moved it her sleep. I completely froze, hoping she wouldn't wake up at this awkward sight. But she only moved the slightest, and groaned a little bit. The type of groan you would make when you didn't want to wake up in the morning, but a lot quieter.

I carefully placed the bottle back along her collarbone and raised my index finger to her face. In the lowlight (Olivia had a nightlight in her room), her skin looked incredible creamy, complimenting her golden blonde hair, which looked more like a glistening honey-colour at the moment. I swept her bangs out of her eye, even though they weren't open. _I wonder what her eyes look like in the lowlight. _

Then I felt the sudden urge to wake her up, but I didn't, not wanting to startle her. I ran my finger down the side of jaw line and rested it on her chin. I wanted to lift her chin and bring her lips to mine, but we all knew that probably wouldn't turn out to well, so I resisted.

She suddenly looked a little bit cold to me. Without moving anything other than my left arm, I stretched it out towards the blanket that was lying across our feet, but my hand wouldn't reach that far. I felt the need to compromise. I could either take my chances with waking her up and keeping her warm, or letting her look cold the rest of the night.

I felt ridiculous all of a sudden, thinking this much about a girl I just met about a week or so ago. But I moved my body a bit forward anyways, grasping the blanket and pulling it up around her shoulders.

Then she moved again, scaring the living daylights out of me. Her right arm moved around my hips and hugged my waist, as if I were her personal teddy bear. Her hands were freezing cold, so I hoped my chest was warm.

_Wait, when did I take off my shirt?_

It didn't take me very long to fall back asleep. When I woke up in the morning, though, there were no other people, which was weird. I thought at least Olivia and Layla would be here. Olivia would sleep as much as she could when she could. So would I, but I never did as much as she did. And of course Layla would still be sleeping—she was the "star of sleeping" she called it. Nonetheless, I had never slept as late as I had, which was, when I checked the clock, until 12:21.

I stretched, wanting to ask what day it was. It took me a minute to realize that because of the time, it had to be the weekend. It took me a little longer to think about the events that had happened yesterday; that we had work yesterday, and I finally figured out it was Saturday.

I stood up and let my blood flow up to my brain. It made me want to sit back down again. I guess sitting while sleeping wasn't the best idea, since my neck felt like someone had karate-chopped the back of it.

I massaged the back of my neck and my shoulders and grabbed my shirt, pulling it over my head. When _had_ I taken it off? I guessed sometime in the middle of the night. My sub-conscience must have done it. Unless… Bella and I…

I mentally slapped myself for even thinking such a thought. I wanted to turn around and hit my head against the wall repeatedly.

_Why had I slept so much though? _I thought.

I got outside and it was really sunny. And hot. I felt like I was sweating already the moment I stepped outside.

I walked over to Joel's cabin, where the girls probably were, eating breakfast. Now that I thought about it, I was pretty hungry too.

I heard giggling and laughing inside, typical girl stuff. As soon as I opened the door, all six girls looked at me, and started clapping. They said things like "finally, sleepyhead," and "good afternoon," or "there he is!"

"Finally!" My sister yelled. "We're so hungry."

"Why didn't you eat?" I asked, taking a seat at the table.

"Dae convinced us that we should wait for you before we ate breakfast." Olivia answered.

"What time did you wake up?" I asked. Dae went over to the stove and started cooking eggs. The sudden smell of the yolks frying in the pan made me feel even hungrier.

"We all woke up between nine-thirty and ten," said Layla, looking bored.

I looked at Bella, who was sitting to the right of me. She was staring off at nothing in particular, twirling her necklace between her index and middle finger.

"How many eggs would you guys like?"

We either shouted out one or two eggs. I said two; Bella mumbled one. She seemed pretty distracted as DaeSung cooked the eggs. She was pretty amazing, by the way. She cooked eight eggs at a time, two in each pan. The other girls went conversing.

"Hey," I poked Bella, "you alright?"

"Yeah," she murmured.

"Are you sure?" I whispered. "You seem kind of quiet today."

"I said I'm fine!" She snapped back at me, a bit loudly I might add. Everyone stopped talking and looked at us; even Dae was distracted from cooking for a few seconds to see what was going on.

Bella looked a little… _What's the word? Worried? Scared? _I choked on one word: she looked as if she _regretted_ what she had just said. Was it that big of a deal though?

"Sorry," her voice was so low; it was hard to hear it even after the others stopped talking.

"It's alright," I turned to face forward.

Dae brought us our eggs, and I talked to the others about anything that came to mind. Dae went over to ask Bella if she was alright and such, but she still stayed quiet throughout breakfast.

**Bella**

I only ate half my breakfast, left early, and went to go take a nice long shower. I wasn't sure why I was so nervous around him now—just over what had happened last night. I woke up in the morning snuggling with Damien's _bare_ chest, and I hope he hadn't seen that. It wasn't your normal boy-girl-falling-asleep-together scene where the girl's head is resting on his shoulder, and his head is resting on hers. My hands were wrapped around his waist, his arms around my back. My face felt really hot.

_Why_ _had I hoped he hadn't seen that? Why_ _did it matter so much? _

And I really didn't need to snap back at him like that.

I took my necklace off and set it on the counter. Stripping off my pajamas and putting them in the hamper made me realize that today was the day we had to go down to the Laundromat. I didn't feel like leaving my room though. I ended up taking a bath instead of a shower—quite a long one, I might add. I didn't bother to put my hair in a bun. I just let my straightened hair turn back into ringlets and sunk my body into the water. I guess I would say my hair was a mixture of ringlets, waves—

_Crash. _

I heard glass break on the floor. I quickly sat up, listening closely to see if it were my imagination.

_Thud. Thud. _

Something against the walls that time, I could hear it. I stood up, sweeping my hair to the side and squeezing the water out of it. It had already become pretty curly. I grabbed one of the white towels, quickly dried myself off, and wrapped it around my body.

I slowly opened the door and looked into my bedroom.

At first I didn't see anything. But then, turning my focus towards my bed, something hit me straight in the forehead. A little silvery object fell right in my hands, as if it knocked itself out. I examined it in my hands for a second.

It was a little silver, shining, star.

Not like me—I mean it was actually shaped like a star. That wasn't what really scared me, though. It really freaked me out when the star blinked its open eyes that I hadn't notice before, looked up at me, and it seemed _happy. _

It didn't even have a mouth to smile with!

"What the hell is this!" I shrieked.

**Lily**

I sat on my bed, watching TV and bouncing. I was still smiling and giggling about the dinner with Ace. I played it over in my mind over and over again. I hated the awkward parts, but it was still funny.

_Knock, Knock. _

_I heard a knock on the door and squealed. Layla looked at me like some sort of idiot. _

"_What?" I tried to not smile at her (and failed), "I'm just happy he's coming over." _

_Layla rolled her eyes and I answered the door. _

_Ace looked as good as usual. Despite the heat, he was wearing a shirt, and I was pretty sure that was the first time I had seen him in one. He was wearing a nice, sleeveless dress shirt, a black tie, and black shorts. His tan skin glowed and his eyes sparkled. I accidentally let a giggle slip out of my mouth and covered it with my hand. _

"_Why are you all dressed up?" I asked. _

"_I can't look nice for you?" He flashed a smile and my face washed over pink. "That and Damien wouldn't let me in here if I dressed as usual," He whispered in my ear. _

"_Ahem," Damien cleared his throat. _

_We turned our heads in his direction. He was smirking and waiting for us to finish. _

"_Hey, Damien." Ace grabbed Damien's hand and did the hand-shake-man-hug thing. "How've you been?" _

_Damien looked at Ace awkwardly, raising an eyebrow. "Good; how about you?" _

"_Fine, thanks for asking." Ace turned and smiled at me for no apparent reason. _

_Just then, Bella, Ollie, Dae, and Diane came walking in. Ollie had Bella and Dae linked to her arms, one on each, while Diane was trudging behind them._

"_Can we eat already?" Ollie complained, "I'm hungry," she stretched out 'hungry'. _

"_You people are the ones that are slow," Damien flicked his sister's forehead. Ollie rubbed the now red spot. "Dinner's ready already." _

"_Fine, then." Ollie sat down to the right of Layla; I sat to her left. Dae, Bella, and Diane sat at the other side of the table. Ace sat at one end of the table, the one closest to me. "Give me my food." She always got grumpy when she was hungry. But then again, so did Layla. _

"_Fine, then," Damien grumbled, "Let's just get this over with." _

"_What?" Ace asked as Damien handed him a bowl of clam chowder. "You don't want me here?" _

"_I don't want any more guys than me here." Damien sat down as he passed out the rest of the bowls and spoons. _

"_Why not?" Ace raised an eyebrow. _

"_Because it's almost nighttime." Damien raised an eyebrow back at him. _

_There was an awkward silence. I sipped my chowder loudly to try and break it. _

"_It's not like I was going to do anything," Ace mumbled, sipping his soup with me. It made me giggle. "And besides, couldn't _you_ do it if you wanted to?" _

_I almost choked on my dinner right there when I realized what they were talking about. Ollie just sighed, Layla coughed awkwardly and Bella looked down into her bowl, lips pursed. _

"_Well, yeah, I could do it if I wanted to," He glared at Ace. He lowered his tone, "it probably wouldn't be that hard." _

"_Do what?" Dae looked at us innocently. _Oh, Dae, _I thought. _You're so innocent_. She never got any of the dirty jokes Layla cracked every once in a while, or at least, she pretended not to. Dae glanced at all of us with a pouting face, trying to get an answer out of somebody. I really wanted to tell her, since she was practically begging and it was so hard to say no to her, but I just couldn't tell her. _

_More awkward silence. _

"_Haven't you and Bella already done it?" everyone turned towards Layla at the sound of her voice. "I mean, you're always in her room and stuff." _

"_No!" Damien and Bella said at the same time. Bella's face flushed pink, and she looked back down at her soup. _

"_I'm not always in her room!" Damien protested. "And even if I were, that doesn't mean I was doing anything." _

"_Do _what_?" Dae looked at all of us curiously. We all sighed. _

_Awkward turtle. _

"_And wait a second!" Bella spoke up. "What do you mean 'it wouldn't be that hard'?" She lowered her voice, imitating Damien. She suddenly realized what he meant by 'easy'. She scrunched her eyebrows at Damien, who cleared his throat nervously._

"_I was kidding." _

_Bella look unconvinced, but she turned her attention back to her chowder. _

Soon, I was going to meet Ace at the Blue Bar. It made me happy just thinking about spending time with him.

**Damien**

All it took was one scream from Bella's cabin to get me out the door. It was either a big spider or a giant mosquito eater. I remembered her telling me one night how she hated a lot of bugs, especially anything really big, and she said she was arachnophobic. I asked her how she had a phobia already, being on earth for only a few days and all, and she just said they were really creepy.

I grabbed the Swiffer out of my brother's closet and ran to her room. It took me a little bit to find the Swiffer, though. And to find the spare key to my brother's room since, for some reason, it was locked. And then there was the breaking down the door of the closet (I wasn't sure why that was locked, either). I _needed_ that Swiffer. Even if it seemed like I wasn't exactly scared of spiders, I wasn't really sure how big it would be.

"What's going on?" I burst through Bella's door. I wasn't even sure if it was locked or not.

Her hair was wet and curly, so I guessed she had just taken a shower. Then I realized she was wearing a towel around herself.

Her hands went up and swiped something in the air. "What are you doing in here!" She yelled right back at me. She had her hands curled up and balled around whatever she had grabbed.

"What was that?" I eyed her hands.

"What was what?"

"What are you holding?" I moved closer to her.

"Nothing," she took a step back from me. "Why do you have a Swiffer?"

I glanced at the Swiffer, back to her hands, then back to her eyes. "You tell me what you're holding and I'll tell you why I have the Swiffer?"

"Can't you just–" She started, but whatever was in her hands had broken free. A little silver thing was flying in the air, about the same diameter as your palm, maybe a little smaller. It had eyes, and wherever it flew, sparkle trailed its path. Bella's hands went to hold up her towel. I looked a little closer at the silver object as it moved towards me. It was in the shape of a star, which I wasn't sure how I missed.

"What is this thing?" I said, bemused as one of its points landed on my index finger.

"I don't know," Bella said as she bent down to get something off the floor. She held it in her palm and showed it to me. It was the glass bottle that had been filled with stardust, and the star had been growing inside it. But one side of the bottle had been broken; I was guessing it had let itself free.

"So this thing came from _that_?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"It's not a thing!" She said angrily as the star went flying back in her direction. "His name is Starfy!"

I think I looked at her with the most confused face I could possibly make. "Why would you name it _that_?"

"Because it was in an ad I saw earlier." She said, giggling as the silver star swirled around her head. I had remembered that ad, too. _The Legendary Starfy. _It was a little star that saved the world or something like that, in a game or comic or something.

I felt a sudden impulse.

"Let's go to the library," I said suddenly.

"What?" She looked at me confused. "Why?"

"To, you know, look up some stuff on the star thing."

"You _really_ think we'd find stuff?" She asked in a sarcastic tone.

"Yeah," I grabbed her wrist. "Come on! Let's go!" I was getting impatient.

"Wait a second!" She pulled her wrist away from my hand. "First off, why are you so anxious? Second off, I'm not even dressed!"

"Fine then!" I turned around. "Get dressed."

"Ugh," she grumbled. I heard her take off her towel and go through her drawers.

Oh god, my man instincts were getting to me. _Just take a deep breath_, I told myself, letting out an audible sigh.

"If you can't handle it, then go outside, pervert." Bella said in an annoyed tone.

"I'm fine," I said, taking another deep breath.

"Really?" She asked sarcastically. Her voice was closer than before. My heart sped up and I gulped in nervousness.

"Really," I replied. I kept my eyes on her front door, not letting them wander around to room.

I felt a hand on my left shoulder. _Don't turn around, don't turn around, don't turn around. _

Her hand slid down my arm and grabbed my hand.

"What are you doing?" I whispered, closing my eyes. I could either turn around and do what I wanted to do, but that could either lead to her kissing me back or my death. Or I could just stand here, eyes closed, and see what she was doing.

I liked the first one better, but the second idea seemed safer.

The blood was pounding in my ears and my face grew hotter. My man instincts were going to get the best of me soon if she didn't stop whatever she was doing.

"Damien…" She whispered; her voice was at the nape of my neck.

And that was about the end of my rope.

I whipped my body around so that it was facing hers, grabbed her shoulders , and pinned her against the wall. Both our breathing quickened. My forehead was pressed against hers, our mouths only an inch or so apart. She was already fully dressed when I looked down.

"What are you trying to do?" I whisper-yelled at her.

She stayed quiet. Her face flushed pink as she looked down.

"It's driving me crazy!"

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I just was wondering what it felt like."

"What what feels like?" I leaned my head back a little from hers.

"You know…"

I thought about it for a moment. "You know I didn't mean anything by that conversation with Ace—"

"No, not that!" She looked down in embarrassment.

"Then what?" I let my hands up from her shoulders. She was still looking down at her feet, blushing.

"I've seen people love others… And watched them fall in love with one another…"

"You want to know what it feels like _to love_?"

"Not exactly…"

"Then what!" I was getting so anxious. There was a silence. An excited chill ran through my body as I realized what she might've been talking about. "To _kiss_?" I leaned into her.

Her head flew up in my direction. I smiled, leaning in closer, slowly. She smiled slightly too, glancing down at my lips.

Then I slowed down. Man, I was going to kill myself for what I was about to do.

When my lips brushed hers lightly—so lightly that she probably didn't even feel it; so lightly that it probably wasn't even considered a kiss anymore, I backed up from her. Her eyes fluttered open and she gave me a confused look.

"You can't _just _kiss someone," I told her, "it has to be someone that you really like."

"I really like you," she said, getting an inch closer to me.

I chuckled, "But not that way," and I turned away from her.

**Thanks so much to whoever reads this, because I know I don't get very many readers! And thanks to my editor, Nganny. I lahv you! :D **


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